We're never gonna be alone again
by Dark K. Sly
Summary: Allison comes back on a Thursday. It changes everything. [Sterek]
1. Chapter 1

**We fight 'till the end**

Allison comes back on a Thursday.

It rains like the sky is personally punishing the population of Beacon Hills for pretending there's nothing weird going on in this freaking town, and Stiles is home because he has nothing better to do right then — his applications for about a dozen different scholarships seem so silly now, now that he knows he wants to stay in Beacon Hills and be a cop like his dad.

At least, that's what he thinks he wants.

That's what he thinks he wants till he hears the knock on his front door.

 **X**

She looks exactly like she did a second before he killed her — which is a strange thought to have when you open your door and see your best friend's dead girlfriend staring at you.

She has a smile on her lips and looks for all the world like there's nowhere else she'd rather be than at his door — she's still wearing her purple dress and coat, and she is a bit dirty, her hair in disarray. Her bow and arrows are slung over her shoulder and she's the one to take the first step towards him, arms raised, and Stiles thinks, well, if she's going to kill him, if she's somehow a zombie who came back from the dead to kill him, he kind of deserves it.

Allison hugs him instead.

Laughs a bit while she's doing it too — a light, carefree sound he doesn't really remember hearing even months before he got possessed and she died.

"I missed you," she whispers as she holds him close, and he closes his eyes, tears falling down his face — not that he minds, because he doesn't.

He has no idea what is going on but one of his friends is back _from the dead_ , he's not going to complain about it. He has every right to cry.

"I'm sorry," he replies, even though what he means to say is _I missed you too,_ "I'm sorry," he repeats, and Allison turns around a bit, kisses the side of his head, standing on her tip-toes to do it, even though when she had died, they were almost the same height, and then takes a tiny step back, staring at him, dimples showing, smile still on her lips.

"I know. And I forgive you," comes her simple reply, "Can I come in?"

He nods and takes a step back. She gets in, closes the door behind her, and looks around his living-room — it hasn't changed much in the months she's been gone.

"I'm hungry," she tells him, taking off her bow and arrow case and setting them on a couch.

Feeling as if he's just entered some alternative reality, Stiles takes her to the kitchen — he hopes she won't suddenly turn into a zombie and eat _him_.

 **X**

"Are you a zombie?" he asks when he can't help himself anymore and Allison is on her third ham sandwich.

She frowns, tilting her head to the side a bit.

"You know, now that you mentioned it, I do feel a little like eating some braaaaaiiiinnnsss," she hisses the s's before giggling at his horrified face and going back to eating as she shrugs, "I don't think I am. I'm just… back."

"But… _How_?"

She shrugs again, and they stare at each other for a long while — Stiles thinks he should be worried, or frightened, or afraid — he can't. He doesn't know _how_ to be those things when Allison is _back_.

And she seems to be _really back_.

"We should call your dad."

She nods, eyes widening, as if she is just now thinking of it.

"We really should."

And so they call him.

 **X**

Argent isn't amused when Stiles calls him and asks him to come to his house on a rainy Thursday evening without telling him why, but he comes. He knows that even though Stiles is a bit spastic and annoying and just an all-around little shit, he wouldn't call Chris if he didn't have a reason to — and boy, does he have reason to.

Christopher Argent's face when he sees Allison standing just a few feet from the door is something Stiles is never going to forget, because it's heartbreak and hope all rolled into one, and he gasps, as if physically hurt, before his hand flies to his gun but he retreats it just as fast — Stiles has the feeling he's having the same thought he had a few hours ago: if this Allison is back to hurt or kill either of them, they'd let her.

It's their fault she died in the first place, isn't it?

He takes four steps into the house, and Stiles closes the door as Chris still stares at Allison like she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and Stiles understands that — not in a Scott-from-last-year kind of way, but in a holy-shit-she's-alive kind of way.

He can't quite believe his eyes either.

The man pulls Allison into a bone-crushing hug and she giggles again, happy and content, her hold tight around her father too, and Stiles knows he should look away but he can't, not when he sees the tears and the happiness coming off of them in waves.

" _How?"_ Argent asks, and Allison looks at Stiles, and they both shrug.

They have no idea.

Chris seems to be gearing up for a full interrogation when the door opens again, and the Sheriff comes in.

He too freezes in place when he sees Allison, his eyes wide, and hands going for his gun.

"Zombies are a thing now?!" he exclaims, his voice loud and exasperated, and Stiles laughs and laughs, because he doesn't even know how this is his life.

 **X**

They end up at Deaton's before calling Scott.

Chris says it's for privacy, and Stiles's dad says it's for the best, and Stiles and Allison look at each other and know that it's because they don't want the kid to get his hopes up in case she's a collective hallucination or maybe a trick to kill them all, even though she says she's fine.

Deaton comes out from the backroom, takes one look at Allison and stills.

"Ah, this is not _quite_ what I had in mind when I got that letter," he says, as if _that_ explains anything, and Stiles wants to strangle him a little bit.

Argent seems to feel the same way, and that's why Deaton ends up explaining everything better than he would have if it were just Stiles and Allison in there.

Hunters sure are useful.

 **X**

Braeden hadn't shared much about what the hell had happened between her and Derek when they parted ways, but she did say they were better off as friends, that he had some unsolved issues he needed to work on (hah, understatement of the year), and that he had been looking into the Nemeton and its powers when they had spoken last.

Deaton had received a letter just the day before, from Derek, saying he wanted to do some good to the people who had truly helped him in his time in Beacon Hills, and that he hoped his sacrifice would help them all heal, but especially Stiles, who had always saved him even when he was an asshole (which caused Stiles to snort and say all the time).

The vet hadn't expected the sacrifice to bring someone back from the dead, but hey, Allison is fine.

Her heartbeat and vitals are perfectly okay, she is not a zombie, she's just fine.

She's alive again because Derek sacrificed his mother's claws to the Nemeton somehow — so it's not like he killed anyone in a "life for a life" kind of way, and she should be perfectly able to resume her life as she saw fit from now on.

She smiles at Stiles, tears sliding down her beautiful face as she hugs him close, and when she lets go, Chris hugs him too, unexpectedly.

"I don't know what you did to help Hale, but thank you. Thank you," he says in a whisper, and Stiles shakes his head, because _he_ should be the one thanking _them._

Oh, he knows it wasn't _he_ who killed Allison, but it was still his hands holding the sword, and his eyes seeing the blood, and his body carrying the killing out.

He feels lighter than he has in a year. He feels as if he can _breathe_ again, and the way his father looks at him when Chris lets go tells him his dad feels lighter too — his son is not a killer after all.

 **X**

When Scott sees Allison, Stiles thinks he's going to have a heart attack.

The Alpha doesn't seem to know what to do with himself as they try to explain what really happened to him, and Stiles isn't even sure he _gets it_ , because he's too busy smiling stupidly at Allison and trying to wrap his head around the fact that _she is not dead_.

Stiles isn't too sure he gets it either — he's not sure if he just got so used to rolling with the punches that nothing fazes him anymore, or if he just hasn't computed yet that _Allison isn't dead anymore._

She goes home with her dad, Stiles and his dad head home too, and Scott stays behind so Deaton can explain it all to him once (or ten times) more until he gets it.

It's not until he's home, dinner on the table, his dad eating happily, that he stops to think that Derek has done this _for him_.

Just for Stiles, and that is why Allison had showed up on _his_ doorstep, and not back at her home, or Scott's or Lydia's, but his.

Derek did this for him, helped him heal his soul from a wound he never thought he would get over, and didn't even stick around for him to say thank you.

Such a Derek thing to do.

 **X**

They call a pack meeting to tell them all together that Allison is back, and it's not exactly what they are expecting — Lydia, of course, already knows: she had a vision, and then she thought she was wrong, but now she knows, and accepts, and is happy for it, so it's cool. But Mason and Liam and Hayden and Corey don't even _know_ Allison, and they hadn't exactly told their new pack members about the whole thing.

The rest of the pack just looks a bit fuzzy on the whole 'the Ex-Alpha did _what_ now?' to really understand how awesome it is that Allison is back, but they don't let it get them down.

She's freaking back, and it's all that matters.

 **X**

Allison and Stiles had been friends before, but now they are more like _best_ friends. They understand each other, and tell each other jokes. They are human in the middle of a whole lot of supernatural beings, and as the year goes on and on, without the stress from its first month, they hang out together more than they used to, mostly with Stiles helping her catch up on what she had lost.

She had never been officially dead in her records, just gone. Her father hadn't been able to actually go through the process of declaring her dead, and had buried her body himself – no one in town knew Allison had died.

So Chris Argent makes up a fake paper trail for her, as if she had been in France the whole time.

They don't question it much at school — no one ever questions anything too much in Beacon Hills, after all — and things get into a pretty easy routine.

Malia gets stressed out because Stiles is spending too much time with Allison. Scott thinks that maybe the two of them are getting together. Lydia huffs at both of them and calls them ridiculous, which the two of them deserve, but it doesn't solve their problems magically in that department.

Truth is that Allison was with Isaac before she died, and Scott was in love with Kira, even if now she was living with the Sand People or something. And truth is that Stiles was already pretty confused about his relationship with Malia to start with, ever since Theo showed up, and now he doesn't know what he wants anymore.

And that feeling has a way of spreading through his whole life.

 **X**

"So… you're not going to college?" Allison asks on a sunny Thursday afternoon in the middle of winter, pulling out a letter of acceptance from Yale and the accompanying paperwork for a full scholarship.

"I…" he's ready to give his whole speech about wanting to help people the way he can best, as a deputy in his dad's department, but he can't really lie to her the same way he does with Scott, and his dad, and Malia, and Lydia.

This is his best friend who came back from the dead because he killed her and a guy he helped decided to help him back.

It feels like sacrilege to lie to Allison.

"I'm not sure."

She stares at him, pencil in her mouth, straightening her eyes, as if sniffing out his weaknesses, which she might as well be doing, the girl isn't a werewolf, but damn, she's good at sniffing out lies of all kinds.

"You're already in. You already have a full ride. Why not defer it for a year, and I don't know, take some time off?"

By time off, he knows perfectly well, she means time _away_ , and three months ago he would have said hell no, but now Allison is back, three feet away from him. They are studying for their chemistry class, and she looks cozy in his hoodie because her jacket was too thin, and he likes the way his room now always smell a bit like her shampoo because of the amount of time she's over at his place.

It's not like Scott sometimes thinks, even going as far as telling Stiles that if they ever got together, he'd understand, or as Malia fears, that she's being replaced — it's just that Allison died, and Stiles died too. Being possessed by a demon killed a little bit of him that never really came back, and Allison _gets it_.

She does, and she still wants what's best for him.

He wants what's best for her too.

"I'll defer if you do it with me."

She smiles at him, all dimples and challenge, and nods.

Maybe in a year, leaving the idea of college behind and settling for deputy won't feel so much like a sentence like it does now.

 **X**

Christopher Argent presents them with tickets and won't take no for an answer.

"It's my present, my gift, for the both of you. A graduation present. Go to Europe, go to Asia, go to Africa, live a little, live a _lot_ , and then come back knowing that the world is bigger than Beacon Hills."

Stiles doesn't want to accept it — a whole _year_ out, traveling around the world with Allison, all expenses paid by Papa Argent, he just can't _take it_ , but his dad encourages him to do it, and Scott tells him it's the best thing they can do, and he still wants to say no when Chris looks into his eyes, tears welling up as Stiles bites his lip, shaking hands on his shoulders.

"You brought her back. I don't care that Hale is the one that actually did it, but you were the one who motivated him to do it — let me at least show you that I'm in debt with you forever. This is _nothing_ compared to what you did. Please, let me help you just a tiny little bit, because what you did for me is priceless, and even if I paid a whole lifetime of travel for the both of you, I couldn't repay you. Please, let me do this."

And he says yes.

 **X**

They travel.

Oh boy, do they travel.

They start in the Americas, and see the huge cities and also the huge forests. They visit Honduras for the Copán Ruins. They visit Brazil for the heat and the stunning beaches, and they go to Argentina to watch the Tango. They visit Chile for the wine they can legally drink there, and fly to Australia to see Sydney. They go to the wilderness in New Zealand. They see Cape Town in South Africa, and do volunteer work in Mali. They eat strange food in India, get sick and spend three days in hotel rooms, swearing to go back home the moment they can walk again. They break their promise, and go to China, and Tokyo, and make their way to Europe by train, finding work in small towns to help pay for the souvenirs they keep sending home. Allison takes him to her favorite places in Paris, and he makes her follow him into weird music shops in London. They sigh together over how beautiful Edinburgh is, and drink themselves silly in Dublin. The ride bikes in Amsterdam, and toast in the sun in Greece.

They take their last flight in Portugal, and head back home eleven months after they left.

They have pictures and souvenirs, and a new lease on _life_.

They are not the two kids who died and came back, or the two humans in a wolf pack — they are Stiles and Allison, and that is kind of enough when they think about it.

Kira is back when they get home — and Lydia and Scott are together in a turn of events literally no one saw, but that makes perfect sense.

Malia is fine, and so is Liam, now worried about moving out, and Hayden is happy enough. Mason and Corey is still going on strong, and the Sheriff and Chris spend a lot of time together, minding their own business.

Everyone is doing just fine _without_ them, and Stiles can't really explain why this makes him _happy_ instead of sad — they can live on, and he can live on, and they are doing great even without him there.

Allison looks at him the second he realizes that, and they grin at each other.

The next day, they are off to New Haven to find out just how bad their dorms are.

 **X**

Classes are hard, and studying is hard, and Allison's roommate is a bit too obsessed with cleaning, so she spends a lot of nights in Stiles's room. _His_ roommate is kind of sure Stiles and Allison are together, and she always laughs when he insinuates something, and starts dropping kisses on Stiles head and cheeks when the boy is around, just to mess with him.

Stiles rolls his eyes, but doesn't complain.

There are worse things in the world.

 **X**

The coffee shop is kind of cute, but what sells them into it is the fact that it has a small bookstore attached.

They could never resist that combo.

"Remember that one in Tokyo? With the tea?" Allison tells him as they get in, pulling off her gloves now that they are away from the winds of November.

"Oh man, if their tea is half that good, I might move in," he replies, pulling off his scarf.

He turns to Allison when she doesn't answer, and sees she's kind of frozen in the spot, staring straight at the counter of the coffee shop, and he looks that way, a bit of dread coming to him, but it's quickly replaced by confusion.

"Isaac?" Allison's voice is a whisper, but a _happy_ whisper, and the barista just smiles widely at her, coming from behind the counter and picking her up in a hug as she laughs and laughs.

Stiles can only stare, not knowing how to define how he is feeling — happiness isn't quite the word, but it's close.

So close.

"I knew you'd find us eventually," a soft voice says from behind him, and he turns, already laughing when he sees Derek's face, a wide smile on his lips as the man closes the gap between them and hugs him close, even if they had never done this before.

Now — now it is happiness.

Complete and utter happiness.

And he hopes it'll last.


	2. Chapter 2

**Never run, never hide**

Derek decides to leave the moment he realizes he has no place in Scott's pack.

No, that's a lie — he decides to leave before that: he leaves when he realizes that Beacon Hills can't hold him anymore. The town is poison to him, and he doesn't have any obligation to stay.

So he goes when Braeden calls, he goes when he could have stayed, and he hurts a lot of people by doing so, even though they don't call him out on it.

He goes to hunt down the Desert Wolf with Braeden, and loses himself in it for a few weeks, until he realizes he traded one prison for the other — this is not _his_ quest, it's hers.

He leaves again — and Braeden promises him it's not running, it's not hiding, it's finding himself, and he accepts that.

He also accepts he might need therapy.

 **X**

He goes to therapy.

He starts out intense, going once every two days to a nice little old lady, who helps him out more than he could think possible, because even though he's a full wolf, and even though he talked to his mother, he still has a lot of issues to work through.

It's not easy admitting to the guilt he feels, and it's even harder to start letting it go — the therapist suggests he should do something to _help_ the people he wants to help, but that he shouldn't tie himself down to the town that always hurts him in the process. You can still help people and not hurt yourself for it (and isn't that a lesson he should have learned sooner?).

He soul-searches a lot those days. Talks to Braeden on the phone to know she's okay.

He thinks about who he should really try to help — Scott clearly doesn't _need_ his help, and he's not really sure he wants to help him anyway. He thinks of all the people he's hurt, and he thinks of the ones who were _always there_ , and he can only think of one name: Stiles.

 **X**

He thinks of the Nemeton when he thinks of Stiles. He knows they faced more problems after that, but he also knows that the death of Allison Argent is never going to leave Stiles, and that he is the one who suffers the most out of all of them, because he suffers for them all. He always feels responsible, and he always feels that he has to help — it's about time someone help him back.

He looks into things, and Braeden helps him some, until she tells him she's going back to Beacon Hills because his cousin called her for help — Derek gets it, it's _her_ mission, and now he has one of his own: heal, and help healing someone else while he's at it.

The idea that the Nemeton works on sacrifices isn't hard to grasp, and he chooses a night when no one is around it anymore to go back into town to do the ritual — the ground around the old tree is walked on and disturbed, and he shivers as he sets his mother's claws in the center of it, feeling all the evil surrounding it, but also that his sacrifice is accepted.

He's not sure _what_ will come of it, but he knows for sure that it'll help Stiles, and that's all that matters.

Derek turns around, walks away. Leaves a letter for Deaton and hopes for the best. Catches a plane to Paris the next morning, without once thinking of _what_ he brought back to help Stiles, but whatever it is, he knows it'll be good.

 **X**

When he finds Isaac, he apologizes first, and asks for nothing in return. He apologizes for not being completely truthful to him when he turned him, and for being a terrible Alpha when Isaac was his Beta. Apologizes for hurting him, and leaving him behind, and never believing in himself enough to actually believe in other people.

Isaac listens, nods sometimes, but doesn't say anything in return.

Derek sticks around Paris for a week. By the sixth day, Isaac comes to him, eyes wide and scared as he shows him a picture on his phone.

 _Back from France!_ reads the caption on a photo of Allison with Stiles. Derek blinks back tears, knowing he helped, that he did that, and for the first time in a long, long while, he feels as if he's done something truly _good_ with nothing terrible to follow.

Isaac stares at him and asks how he did it. Derek shakes his head and tells him his mother helped him. His former Beta is still staring at him — now not with mistrust, or fear, or anger, but contemplating everything Derek has told him a week ago under new light.

On the picture, Allison and Stiles have their arms around each other, smiling away like nothing's wrong in the world, and Derek feels as if he could do anything at all.

When he comes back to the US a week later, Isaac comes with him.

 **X**

They settle for New Haven because it's not a huge city, but also not a tiny town.

Neither of them talk about the fact that they know Stiles got into Yale, and that Allison might come with him, if their Facebook feed is anything to go by — Isaac has them both on his friends' list, but he never talks, never likes any pictures, never comments on any status, he just watches.

When Derek tries to ask him why, he just shrugs and tells him he has had time to think things through, he's had time to find his center, his anchor, and let go of most of his issues for a while now. Allison and Stiles should be able to do that themselves, away from the past, and Isaac is _in_ their past.

Derek still goes to therapy, Isaac starts seeing a professional too. The ex-Alpha uses his insurance money to open up a small coffee shop with a tiny bookstore attached, and half of it is on Isaac's name.

They work, they go home, make some casual friends, and feel like they have a tiny little pack of two to call their own.

From afar, through pictures and statuses, they learn that Scott is going to Beacon Hills Community College, and Lydia is headed to CalTech.

They also learn that Stiles and Allison are taking one year off to travel around the world, and Isaac smiles wide when he reads that — not that Derek is far behind. They are healing, bit by bit, day by day. They have bad days and good days, and days when they don't want to see anyone, but they are working through it, and getting better every second.

They are just too happy to know that Allison and Stiles are taking a different route, a longer one, but are doing it too.

 **X**

They have a routine, and it's a good one — they don't feel the need for a lot of excitement in their lives: a good new book, more clients than usual, a nice new movie to watch, that is excitement enough for the two of them, but when Derek hears their voices, oh when he hears their voices his heart races and he and Isaac stare at each other wondering if this is it, if they are finally here.

They are.

Allison looks good with her hair longer again, warm clothes keeping the cold air out, all flushed cheeks and dimples.

Stiles looks like he doesn't carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, and it's the first time Derek has seen him look like that outside of a picture ever since they met.

Allison is the first one to notice Isaac, and she smells happy and excited, and Stiles looks startled and confused, and then Derek can't help himself. He has to say something.

"I knew you'd find us eventually," he says, and Stiles turns, and it's like a punch to the stomach, seeing him this up-close, right in front of him, brown eyes wide, and scent content and happy — none of the bitter taste of fear, of the pungent stink of depression. His scent is sweet and heady, happy. That's all there is to it: he's happy.

Derek hugs him because he's wanted to do that for a long time now, but couldn't, or didn't feel he had the right to, but now he sees no reason not to — he can. He's earned this: Stiles' wellbeing, his friendship, maybe. To have this person who always helps everyone else in his life too.

Maybe even keep him around.

 **X**

Stiles and Allison are frequent visitors of the bookshop and coffee shop. They come around when classes end, sometimes before they start. They study on the tables, and have a small corner all their own where Isaac brings them drinks on the house, and Derek stops by often to talk about some new book, or some hard class.

They go out together a few times. They have dinner at Derek's once or twice — Allison and Stiles cook them food they've learned how to make on their trip, and share stories about being away, seeing the world.

They share some other stories too — about coming to terms with the fact that they aren't responsible for anyone else's life but their own. About how hard it is to be away from everything they had known, but how happy it makes them, this _unknown_ new world they are finding out on their own.

For a few days, Derek is actually thinking that maybe they are going to get together, the two of them. Maybe they'd be good for each other, maybe they are _right_ in a way that Scott and Allison never really felt — and then, one night, Stiles shows up at his door with everything he could possibly need to make him pasta, waltzing into his apartment like he did on his life, taking over the kitchen, and babbling about Allison and Isaac's date that night.

Something loosens up in his chest then, this certainty that Stiles and Allison aren't _like that_ — they are _friends_ , in a way that Derek can barely understand, but they aren't a couple, could never be.

He smiles at Stiles, who has a knowing look in his eyes but still blushes and looks down and away, going on with his cooking as Derek opens a bottle of wine.

They eat, they talk, they sit side by side on the couch and watch something silly on the TV, and Stiles finally turns to him, head tilted to the side curiously, licking his lips before speaking.

"Why me?" he asks, and it could mean a million different things, but Derek knows it's why him: why help him.

And Derek could give him a thousand different answers — because in between saving each other's lives and realizing that Stiles was the only who had never lied to him, he learned how to trust again and he owed that to Stiles, and Stiles alone. He could tell him that he liked him. Could tell him that from stolen glances at Facebook photos and learning to love his voice, he had fallen, little by little, in love with this new person Stiles had become, and was still turning into, and that he wants to know what the final result will be, or find out if he'll always be changing, forever evolving, and taking Derek along for the ride, but none of those would be truthful, because when he did it, when he helped Stiles, he had only had one single thought in mind.

"Because helping you meant helping everyone you'd ever helped, and everyone you will help down the line," he starts, small smile on his lips as he raises his hand to touch Stiles' face, running his thumb on his cheek, because he has a feeling he _can,_ "And so I might as well be helping the whole world."

Stiles snorts, but he smiles and leans in, just a tiny little bit, with Derek closing the distance between them.

The first of thousands more kisses to come.

Because they can.


End file.
